Schools Struggle to Reopen at Limited Capacity While Parents Protest Against It
Around 160 children in an elementary school in Florida would be attending classes. Superintendent in Collier County Public Schools Camela Patton said that social distancing would be at 44%.
"Where are we gonna put those other kids?" she said, expressing concern about the rest of the students. At the public school, the student population was at 48,000, and it had a yearly budget of over $1 billion.
Students to attend at reduced capacity
There was also the issue about who would be wearing masks in the classroom. Patton said that the faculty was still discussing it. The initial plan was that if teachers would wear masks, students would not have to, or it would be the other way around.
Patton marked up options for transportation. At the school bus she attempted to visualize the social distancing in the bus, which was supposed to fit 77 kids. She added that 12% of the bus was being used, which meant that only 9 kids at a time could get on the bus.
Meanwhile, in the classrooms, desks and chairs were right next to each other. She called these educational desks collaborative spaces. The problem was that these desks were designed for kids to share things like markers and crayons.
One possible solution to this would be to space out the desk, but the school was thinking classroom instruction would resume at reduced capacity, with the class size going from 22 to 12 students.
Mike Davis School teacher Natasha Walters said on the other hand that elementary students needed support and hugging.
"They wanna feel safe and loved when they walk up into the classroom," she said. "At such a young age it's going to be a hard time."
Similarly, cafeteria space would cater 122 students instead of over 400.
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Parents want to keep their children home
A recent poll done by the National Parents Union showed that two-thirds of parents want schools to remain closed.
The week prior, President Donald Trump said he thought schools should open.
Similarly, Senator Rand Paul said in a hearing at about the same time that if kids were kept from school for another year, was that the "poor, underprivileged kids" would not be able to learn because their parents would not be able to teach them at home. He added, "It's a huge mistake if we don't open the schools in the fall."
School districts in other states were reopening for students with special needs. State officials and educators believed they would face trouble graduating should they neglect to continue their studies this year.
Parents have expressed their concern about this, and asked why vulnerable students should be the ones to get back to school after the world's biggest medical threat in recent history.
Founding president of the National Parents Union Keri Rodrigues said that authorities were using children of color and children with disabilities as "guinea pigs" for the experiment of reopening the economy. She said this was underserving equally valuable children of color.
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